


Roland

by audreyslove



Series: Family [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 10:12:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreyslove/pseuds/audreyslove
Summary: Roland, the peanut, Regina, tackle smiles instead of a situation Roland cannot begin to understand.





	Roland

She cries a lot.

She cries a lot, she seems to be hungry and eat quite a bit, she sleeps in between crying and eating, and it seems to Roland that that's all she does.

He had been excited to be a big brother, had planned to show his younger sister his favorite parts of the forest, teach her how to make a proper fort, he planned to show her the best flavors of ice cream, the wonder that was peanut butter, the secret handshake he had learned through Henry, he planned to show her how to properly pet Pongo so he whimpered and wagged his tail just so, he would teach her jokes and make her laugh….and an assortment of other wonders.

He had plans for his sister.

But when Eliza was born Regina and daddy had told him the baby could not have peanut butter or ice cream. She can’t learn the secret handshake because Regina had told him that his sister hadn't figured out how to use her arms yet.

He isn't allowed to take her for a walk of the forest because she can not yet walk and Roland grown up enough to carry her all by himself. His father had promised he would escort her when she was older and could be out in the cold for a longer amount of time. But Eliza can’t do that yet.

Eliza can’t do anything except cry, it seemed. And no one likes her crying.  It hurts daddy, it hurts Regina, it makes Henry angry.

What frustrates him the most, however, is that Eliza cannot laugh. Roland is funny – he is sure he is! Henry always laughs when Roland tells his jokes, Henry laughs when he does his "jelly" walk, the walk where he bent his legs just so, leans his back as far as he could, his arms wiggling around around as he giggles and says he has no bones.

But his jelly walk does not make Eliza laugh, or even smile. Regina says that Eliza can't do those things either. She would laugh one day, Regina had promised. But not yet.

But when his daddy burps Eliza one day Roland sees it!  His baby sister, her eyes shut, mouth curved into a smile. 

"Papa I thought you said Eliza can't smile yet!" He cries, staring at her face. "She's smiling now, what is she smiling at? Why doesn't she ever smile at me?"

But his papa laughs at him.  _ Laughs! _ "Roland, your sister won't smile for us for quite some time. Right now she is just making faces in her sleep. You need to wait until she's older for her to really smile.   Just let her rest for now."

But Roland had already put a hand on his sister's head —  an unfortunate, successful attempt to wake her, so he could make her smile himself, or maybe even make her laugh? Roland made silly faces too, faces that should at least make her smile if not laugh.

"ROLAND!" His papa yells at him as Eliza wails loudly.

Eliza is crying because of him. Not laughing; crying. And it's hard not to feel bad, when all he wanted to do is make her smile.

"Eliza is bad! She doesn't like us!" He declares. He stomps away from the kitchen table into the living and kicked angrily at the couch, and  _ ow _ ! That hurt his foot. Papa is yelling at him to get back there right now, and he is going to be in trouble, but Roland doesn't even care. He fights back the tears, his sister cries enough for the entire household. No need to add to it.

But Regina is here now, he didn't even see her coming, but she's bending down so that he can see her eyes without having to look up, and she's put a hand on his back, and her fingers move in a nice pattern across is back, and he feels the anger dripping out of him just slightly.

"Roland," she whispers, and her voice sounds sweet. Regina usually talks in a voice to him that usually makes him feel warm and a bit relaxed, like late spring in the forest, when the sun is bright but not too hot, when he can just sit in the sun and soak up balmy goodness around him.

He fights it, this time, Regina's secret magical power to calm him down.

"She HATES me!" Roland says again, tears threatening to leave his face.

"No Roland, she is just tired and angry."

"I saw her smile. She knows how!" Roland refuses to ook at Regina. He'd rather look at the floor. "She doesn't smile at me."

"She doesn't smile at any of us, yet" Regina reminds as if it should help, but no, this is worse. Eliza should be smiling and happy, the way babies are in books. He frowns, concerned at this.

Regina's not angry, he isn't being punished for being bad and yelling and it somewhat surprises him. 

"Roland, Eliza is still learning how to move those muscles in her face. This smile is like an exercise of the face muscles. Imagine if you had a third arm and you had to learn how to use it. You might not always move it where you wanted to go, and it might upset you quite a bit. Everything on her body is like that. She is learning how to move all those muscles every day. You know how her arms are always waving, and you ask why she hit herself, and papa told you she can't control her arms yet?"

Roland remembers. Eliza couldn't even stop from hurting herself. He nods slightly.

"Well she doesn't hit herself on purpose, she's just trying to learn. And sometimes she gets very tired or frustrated and she cries."

"She is ALWAYS crying." Roland corrects, and Regina laughs at that, and she's pulling him into a hug and it's nice, like something heavy in his chest is lifted.

"She cries a lot," Regina agreed. "But soon she will learn how to use her eyes, how to use her neck muscles, how to use her arms… soon she will be able to look at you, and see how wonderful you are. And then she will smile. And when she does, it will be much better and brighter than that silly face she made in her sleep. Ok?"

"She doesn’t do  _ anything. _ " Roland crosses his arms and looks at her, his face sullen and cross.  True, his baby sister came out much earlier than he expected, but she was here now, had been here for seven weeks, and she hadn't done anything.

"Soon she will do so much," Regina says. "Some of it you won't like. She will steal your toys, she may accidentally break your video games, she will follow you around when you are with your friends, or with Henry. She'll do so much you won't know what to do with her. I promise. But now just keep on talking to your sister, she'll learn a lot in due time."

"Will she love me?" Roland asks timidly, unsure of the answer.  He’s been trying, so so hard for her to love him, in every way she can.  He knows there's something different about his sister, and he isn't quite sure what it means, but it seems scary.

"Roland, she already loves you very much. She just can't show it, yet. But she will learn. You," and she touches his nose with her finger the way Regina does that always makes him smile to laugh, "are impossible not to love."

"Do  _ you  _ love me?" He asks in a soft whisper, almost afraid of the answer.  Since the baby came, Regina has been so busy with Eliza and everyone else — helping with grownup, secret things and helping papa understand how to take care of babies in this land.  And she doesn’t spend much time with Roland, not much.

And Regina had said "I love you" to papa, and she says “I love you” to Henry all the time.  But she has not told Roland she loved him. Not yet.  Not Roland, and not Eliza. 

And he worries, sometimes, if maybe she can’t love them.  If maybe they are both missing something for Regina to love.

He looks up at Regina just then, and realizes he did a bad thing, he made Regina cry. "Regina I'm sorry!" he almost screams, wishing he could take back his question, watching the tears fall down. "Please don't cry I'm sorry!"

Regina shakes her head, holding him close and picking him up. He is big now, too big to be held as he'd informed his papa and Regina many times, but since Eliza was born and she was held all the time… he misses being held. He wraps his arms around her neck and legs clings tightly around her waist. "Roland, no need to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong," she whispers, "I just, I love you so, so much. I'm sorry you even had to ask."

"Do you love Eliza?" Roland asks into her shoulder, hugging her back, finally releasing tears he kept in in soft, wet sobs. He wants so badly for Eliza to be happy and good, to love everyone so they could love her back.

Because he heard things one day, things at a diner his papa told him not to repeat to anyone, especially to Regina. Things about how the baby was bad, and that it made Regina sad and hurt her because it isn't her baby. But he isn't Regina's baby either, and he wanted her to love him so badly.

He had thought maybe if he could get the baby to stop crying Regina would love him and the baby too.

There's something wrong with that question he just asked, though, it makes his papa nervous, has him up and almost running from the kitchen into the living room where they are. Roland can hear him saying something but he was sniffling too loud into Regina's shoulder, and papa sounds far away as he grumbles something like  _ Let me take him for a bit, I'm sorry, Regina. _

But Regina only holds Roland tighter and  _ shh _ -s his small sobs soothingly.

"Yes,” her voice sounds croaked and cracky, "Yes, Roland, I love your sister very much. I couldn't love her anymore."

"You wouldn't even love her more if she laughed instead of cried?" he asks and oh good, that makes Regina laugh.

"No" Regina admits "I'd love her the same amount no matter how often she cried or how little she laughed."

"Me too," Roland says, deciding right then and there that it is true.

Two weeks later Roland is telling his baby sister all about his day at school, his sister looking at him, her eyes look different now, more focused. He tells her how his best friend spilled milk out of his nose when he sneezed, and reenacts it just so, and he’s so glad he’s looking straight at Eliza, because he catches the look on her face.

A smile. A smile with her eyes open and looking at him. A smile that stays on her face for a bit, a smile that turns into two smiles, and then three.

Eliza cries all night that night, but Roland doesn't seem to mind as much.


End file.
